Finally we are getting started with our Viking River Cruise. Today is the embarkation day when our baggage must be placed outside of our rooms at the JW Marriott Hotel and transferred to the VRC Longship Lif while the whole group took the Bucharest City Tour, the first of 7 tours included in the river cruise. As our tour guide Andre1 said, “The Vikings are coming!” true enough, as of today most of the Viking cruisers have landed in JW Marriot Bucharest. There were 5 buses marked A, B, C, D, E and with signs that say “Parliament Palace” or “Old Town”. We opted for Old Town, an Activity Level-Easy, meaning most will be sight-seeing and minimal guide walking tour. The Parliament Palace built by Ceausescu was magnificent and was noted as the largest civilian building in the world. The Parliament has 3,000 rooms and 24-carat gold ceilings. The building is 6 floors below and 6 floors above ground and built on a hillside. We were advised to take the tour inside the building with care and own discretion as there are several steps that may be a challenge for those with difficulty of walking. We opted for the full day Old Town tour and had another sightseeing tour of Bucharest, with another tour guide and another perspective and snippets of Romanian history. She narrated that some years back, Donald Trump offered to buy the Parliament Palace so he can turn in into the largest casino in the world, but the state rejected his offer. The ancestors of Romania are Romans and the language spoken in Romania is 90 % latin. There is a naked sculpture of Romulus San Remus that you can find in some buildings of Bucharest as tribute and celebration of Romania’s Roman heritage. The school system is patterned after the French and college is partially free as the state provide tuition and scholarships to qualified students. Public schools have better quality of education than the private schools. There are 3 famous persons in Romania: Nicolas Ceacescue; King carol 1; and Vlad Tepes Dracula. The tour brought us to major landmarks of the city like the Victory Square, Military Building, the Art Museum, and the historical buildings that defined Romanian architecture. We stopped at the Old Town area and visited the Village Museum. Modest rural dwellings of Romania’s rich culture and traditions where authentic dwellings (rural cottages, farmhouses, water mills) were from all regions of the country have been relocated and reassembled here. A not-so-traditional lunch in a local restaurant was included and we were entertained with the Romanian folkloric dances that highlighted the so-called simple pleasures of rural life. As the bus pulled down to the pier where the VRC Longship Lif was moored, we could not help gasp at the sight of this beautiful long ship, as in long. A little disappointment though as we have been used to the gigantic Holland America and Royal Carribean ocean cruise lines, with their elegant pier embarkation areas and lavish ship settings. The longship has all the conveniences that you will need while in the river, and most of all, it has a more casual atmosphere and more intimate crowd with only over a hundred passengers per cruise sailing. This will be our floating home for the next 8 days of river cruising.
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